You're listening to Financial Advisor Marketing. The best show on the planet for financial advisors who want to get more clients without all the stress. You're about to get the real scoop on everything from lead generation to closing the deal. James is the founder of TheAdvisorCoach.com where you can find an entire suite of products designed to help financial advisors grow their businesses more rapidly than ever before. Now here is your host, James Pollard.

James: Welcome to the podcast. If you're a long time listener, thank you and I'm happy to have you back again. If you're a brand new listener, buckle up because some of the stuff I'm going to say in this podcast it may go against everything that you have been taught. I may even offend you quite a bit but that's okay because I'm doing it from a place of love.

Jonathan: (snickers)

James: Cuddle up, everyone. Everyone who listens to this podcast, I want to wrap you in my virtual arms and swaddle you. [0:01:04.7]

I kind of do; I love the financial advisors who take themselves seriously and the ones that focus on their careers and the one that want to get more clients but everyone else – heh – I could take them or leave them, Jonathan. There is this huge, huge, huge misconception that you have to give value in advance before doing business with someone and for the most part, it's stupid. I want to start this off with a caveat; this does not apply to every single situation every time. I’m very obviously painting with a broad brush here because for most situations what I'm going to say does apply but it does not apply in every single situation all the time. So before you send me some hate mail, before you send me an email explaining your particular situation and how giving value has helped your business, how giving value in advance has changed things for you, please realize that this is a generalization and it works most of the time. [0:02:04.6]

I have seen it, I have tested this, I have questioned people's models, they just blindly accept the idea that you have to give value and it just doesn't make any sense for the most part. I try my hardest to turn off these freebie seekers so if you're a financial advisor who is listening to this right now and all you want to do is get information for free and not buy any of my products or services, please leave now, unsubscribe from the podcast, unsubscribe from my email list, we will go our separate ways. There is no harm, no foul, no hard feelings. It's just that I'm not a good fit for you. I'm actually doing you a favor because I'm saving you time because if you're a freebie seeker what you'll do is you'll listen to a bunch of these free podcast episodes, you'll read a bunch of my articles – I've got like 100+ and you won't implement any of the information. People value what they pay for. If you pay for information, you are significantly more likely to put it to use. [0:03:01.2]

This is not an opinion. This is not just me saying this. This is proven. This is backed by data. This is backed by science. When you pay for something, you are literally more likely to implement the information. When you put it to use, you are more likely to experience the benefits. That's kind of the chain reaction here. When you pay for something, you use it. When you use it, you get the benefits. All I'm trying to do is to help a financial advisor experience the benefits that I can offer. That's it. Nothing crazy or nothing new there, Jonathan. So that's my whole process. I just revealed it. I pulled the curtain apart and people can see everything.

Jonathan: Hold open the kimono.

James: The kimono. I have never worn one of those. I have pulled open my cargo short pocket. You can peek inside. There are so many people who get offended that I don't provide value for free. But what's weird is that I don't see them working with clients for free. [0:04:01.5]

I don't see them managing money for free. I've got some of the best stuff on the planet for financial advisors, yes, I'm proudly charging money for it. If that makes you upset, go back and look for some more free stuff. Go get your dopamine drip, got to feel good because other people give you free stuff and it's just going to make you feel happy go lucky. Now with all that being said, the smart financial advisors are the ones that can read between the lines and understand – this is kind of like a matrix thing here – they can understand that I have been providing value this whole time. So by saying that I don't and explaining how I don't and explaining how you shouldn't, I'm actually providing a tremendous amount of value. It's kind of like a mind freak there – matrix thing. You try to think about it. What's going on? Why is he doing this? Well, read between the lines. Understand that value is different for different people and I wanted to do this podcast because I noticed some financial advisors beginning to fall into this trap. [0:05:03.7]
Well not really beginning, they have been falling into this trap forever but it's been getting worse. They think that they need to provide a bunch of value upfront in order to get clients. That's another key there, the upfront. You are going to provide value eventually. You are going to help people. You are going to change their life. You are going to make a positive impact but you don't necessarily have to provide value upfront. There are both good and bad parts to this but mostly bad. Let me explain. A lot of people, they have had their minds warped into believing that they need to write countless articles giving away valuable information or do dozen of webinars to provide value to their audience. I want you to think about this. Yesterday, I went to a gas station and I got some gas. That gas station did not have a webinar. I also went to an electronic store, I got a new mouse.

Jonathan: They had a funnel then, right?

James: No funnels, Jonathan. "Hey opt into this email list and you can get this." [0:05:59.0]

What's weird is that I do a lot of this stuff – so people see the front end, Jonathan, they see everything that is at the top. They see my opt in form. They see my articles but what they don't see is the back end and that's where the magic happens. So one of the reasons people get duped into this idea of providing value is that they see a lot of people like me = I'm not immune from this – I do email marketing, I have opt ins, I have articles, I have webinars so I'm telling not to do this but at the same time I'm doing it. I know that sounds hypocritical but the secret sauce is in the back end. If you don't do anything after it and what you do matters a heck of a lot then you're probably not going to get the results that you want. So there are a lot of people who basically copy the front end and they try to provide value in the form of articles, webinars and things like that but they don't have a solid backing in place, they don't know what they are doing. I went to an electronic store. I got a new mouse because the computer mouse I had was broken and the electronic store, they didn't give me a fancy white paper, they didn't give me an opt in like "10 Ways I Should Be Using This Mouse" or something, they just didn't. They didn't give me that. [0:07:09.9]

Yet the important part is that both of these places, the gas station and the electronic store, they still got my business. Why? This is something you really need to think about. The reason is they are the value. The gas station is the value. The electronic store is the value. And if I didn't see any value in the first place, I wouldn't have gone there. I needed gas so I went to a place that sold gas and that place is valuable to me. I needed a new mouse so the electronic store was valuable to me. The point is that they were both inherently valuable. They did not need to jump through hoops. They did not need to give a presentation. They did not need to convince me of their value. Now pay attention here because this is incredibly important. [0:08:00.0]

Hey financial advisors, are you ready to take your business to the next level and get more clients with less stress? I invite you to join the James Pollard Inner Circle of Paper and Ink Newsletter that gets delivered directly to your door every month. When you join now you'll also get a 90-minute instant download called, "Five Keys to Success for Financial Advisors", a $97 value for absolutely free. All you have to do is head over to TheAdvisorCoach.com/newsletter and join today.

James: The reason that you providing a bunch of value upfront, the reason that tends to be a mistake is because it assumes that people need to be convinced of your value. This is wrong. In fact, if the gas station insisted that I sit through some webinar or something before purchasing the gas, I probably would have just went to another gas station. This is like something that people don't get. They insist that people go through different hoops and different things – they call it "takeaway selling" and on its own and in the proper context, takeaway selling works because you make people value a little bit more, you make them wait for it, things like that. [0:09:09.0]

On its own in certain circumstances, takeaway selling is amazing but there are some people who would do business with you even if you didn't have the takeaway selling and there are some people who would only do business with you if you had the takeaway selling stuff in place. So you want to capture both. Now that doesn't mean that the gas station is going to have to set up a webinar or a white paper in order to capture both because that's just a gas station, I see them being valuable. If financial advisors were seen valuable to all prospects then they wouldn't need the white papers, webinars, or articles. At the core of this though is a prospecting problem because financial advisors should not be wasting their time with people who don't see the value in financial advice anyway. I mean if you approach someone and you start talking about retirement planning and that person says he's just going to buy a thousand lottery tickets a month that person is not a good prospect for you. [0:10:03.3]

Trying to give value and hope that that person changes his mind is not a good strategy. Now I know this is like a hard episode to follow. I'm throwing a lot of different stuff out here and maybe you need a little bit more education to truly get what I'm talking about. In the last episode, I think either last episode or two episodes ago I talked about marketing collateral. A lot of marketing collateral is based around the idea of providing value but if you're a financial advisor and you're talking with a prospect one-on-one your time is ticking away, your productivity clock is ticking away, you do not want to waste your time on people who don't already see the value. The gas station if there was an attendant there and I was taking that attendant's time, that attendant would want to make sure he/she is only working with people who already want gas. Now because the gas station, there is no one there, it's open 24/7, the gas station doesn't really care. It's kind of like what marketing collateral does. It is there 24/7. [0:11:04.9]

My podcast is going to be here 24/7, you can listen to it whenever you want. If you're a freebie seeker, I don't really have to deal with you face-to-face but when my time is on the line when I’m actually engaged with a prospect, it is of vital importance that I know for sure that that person already sees me as valuable. I should not be providing value upfront. I should not try to convince that person that I am valuable. The only people that I should be dealing with are people who already see the benefit in working with me. Hopefully people get that. I know it's kind of like a long winded cut away, Jonathan, but is that making sense? At least at some point?

Jonathan: Yeah. The way – I thought about this awhile ago, I think I put it in a newsletter but what you talked about providing value and what most people think is what they are supposed to be doing and then there is the other part – demonstrating value. I think that’s what the collateral does for you; demonstrates value so that you can provide value after the people pre-sold.

James: Exactly. [0:12:06.5]

Jonathan: So it's just different phases.

James: Exactly and you want to go where the money is. I want you to imagine that you're a watch company and you got to pick a group of customers for your watch company for you to sell watches to. Group number one is made up of people who do not own any watches whatsoever. Group number two is made up of people who have a bunch of watches. They love watches. They all have let's just say five or more watches. Now I'm asking you, Jonathan, what group would you want to go after?

Jonathan: I am the five watch group all day everyday.

James: Why? Is there a reason why you picked that group?

Jonathan: Because they were already buying watches.

James: Yup. It's seems so simple and it seems too simple to be a concept that could actually work.

Jonathan: Too obvious.

James: Some people, they mistakenly think that they should go after the group number one because they don't have any watches. Again that's a mistake because group number two is the group that has already demonstrated that they value watches. [0:13:05.1]

So if you go to these people and put watches in front of them, guess what? They are probably going to buy but a lot of financial advisors are essentially going after group number one and they are just crossing their fingers. They are hoping. They are hoping that someone will eventually see the light and do something or do business with them and buy a watch. I hope that this is starting to make sense to you because this is a pretty difficult topic to explain. I even do this myself. I think back to the beginning of the podcast where I told all the freebie seekers and all the tire kickers to get lost, why would I do that? Because those are people who will never, ever see the value in buying my stuff or doing business with me. They would never dream of paying $100 for my newsletter or $5000 for private coaching per month so I don't want to waste my time with them and I don't them to waste their time. I want them gone. I'm doing them a favor. I'm getting rid of people who don't see the value so I am left with the people who do. [0:14:04.4]

And financial advisors should do the same thing. Part of this involves a big mental shift because it requires you to realize that you are the value. If you truly get this then things will become easier for you because there are tons and tons of prospects out there but there is only one you. I know I have said that several times in different episodes of this podcast but it's an extremely important point. You can build an entire profitable business on that one point alone. I want to wrap up this podcast soon but I want you to know that when you provide value in the form of free content and stuff like that; webinars, articles, whatever you call value, it should be used as a conversion tool. A lot of people get this wrong and I'm going to talk about this in the Inner Circle newsletter in a few months. I'm going to go really deep. I’m going to discuss this stuff and it's going to be really powerful stuff that's going to help a lot of advisors. I only figured this out a few years ago and it has amazed me ever since. The value, the marketing collateral, the articles, the webinars, podcasts, things like that, it is not an attraction tool. [0:15:07.9]

It can be but you're not going to use that as an attraction tool. It's not its primary purpose. It is a conversion tool. This podcast, right here, Jonathan and I have talked about this – the podcast for me is a conversion tool. I am not trying to attract new financial advisors into my world, although it's a happy benefit. More people listening, they come in and maybe they have never heard of me before but a majority of people who are listening to this podcast right now have come from my website, maybe they have bought stuff from me in the past, maybe they were on my email list, maybe they listen to the old podcast that I had years ago but it is a conversion tool. The people listen to the podcast and eventually the convert. They realize this guy can help me. He can do things for me that nobody else can do. He can grow my business. The newsletter is valuable. It is a conversion tool. This is what you need to understand as a financial advisor or any service professional is when you provide value it should be to the people who are at least at some level already have demonstrated that they value you to begin with and then you can just pour it on. [0:16:13.7]

Hopefully people get that. I know that the majority of people, it's just going to go over their heads but I know that there is going to be one or two out there who are like, "Holy crap, this is the greatest marketing concept I've heard in years." They are going to use it and their life is going to change. When that happens, I have done my job, Jonathan.

Jonathan: You are such a kind and generous fellow. So what do you have for us next time, James?

James: In the next episode, I'm going to discuss a few types of prospects financial advisors should avoid like the plague and one of them is obviously the freebie seeker but there are a few other you want to avoid at all cost so stay tuned. [0:16:54.1]

Jonathan: That is going to be fun. Alright another Financial Advisor Marketing is in the can. We will be back inside your earbuds next time. Thanks for tuning in.

As a financial advisor, marketing is the key to your success. Whether you’ve been in financial services for thirty days or thirty years, this podcast will help you become a better prospector so you can get more clients with less stress.

James Pollard shares his insights on what it takes for you to build your book of clients with less stress.